


Warm Woolen Mittens

by gemstonecircles



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Christmas can make you sad sometimes, F/M, Heero is jumpy, Holiday food is eaten, Post-EW, Relena is paranoid, Residual trauma, but its always better with someone you love, holiday markets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:42:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemstonecircles/pseuds/gemstonecircles
Summary: Peace on Earth and Christmas Cheer are sometimes hard to find.
Relationships: Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29
Collections: Gundam Wing Holiday Matters 2020





	Warm Woolen Mittens

Written for Gundam Wing Holiday Matters Prompt:

★ Sugar and Spice: drinking and making merry, cookie baking frenzy, mistletoe| “I just came for the food.”

* * *

Relena pulled her holly-green beret more snugly around her ears with her free hand as she balanced the hot cup of mulled wine in the other. It was a bit of an ordeal; she was wearing absurdly large and fluffy white mittens and she nearly spilled her wine more than once.

"My favorite part of Christmas was always going to the markets! Mulled wine and fried food and skating and buying ornaments! Everything just is magical, don't you think?" Her bright smile seemed a little forced, however, and she winced as a bit of wine sloshed out of her cup as an older woman elbowed her way past.

Heero was walking a few paces behind, hands stuffed into his pockets and shoulders hunched slightly in one of Zech's borrowed winter coats. He hadn't been pleased at the proposition of borrowing it. When he had arrived a few days earlier, however, the icy cold Sanq winter had come as a shock, and Relena found him shivering in his thin shirt at the shuttle arrivals plaza, unused to the snowy drafts after so much time spend in artificial colony air. Relena had offered to buy him a new coat (an offer he had summarily rejected), or to let him use one of her brother's. Zechs, she pointed out, was very unlikely to notice from Mars.

Six years after the wars, and five after the failed Barton Coup, each passing had Christmas grown more and more relaxed, as the simmering threats of unrest and tension slowly were slowly evened out by proof of efficacy of the new government and the exhaustion of remaining militias, who, though at first skeptical, had warily put down their weapons to try their hands at peace.

Relena, however, had been exhausted.

Every Christmas there was a vise clamping around her heart as she worked long hours, constantly in touch with the Mars Terraformation Project, waiting for hourly updates from Une and the Preventers, and each Christmas night falling asleep in relief that another holiday had passed without incident. While her political adversaries might make talking points of her age and experience, she knew _from_ experience that holidays were the perfect time to stage rebellions, shattering the fragile sense of peace that was steadily growing. Each holiday was a held breath for an assassination, an act of terror, a show of violence. But with each peaceful holiday that passed, she found it a little easier to get to sleep at night.

Five years was a checkpoint, an _anniversary_ , and in the intervening years it had become a well-established and respected reality that the Vice-Foreign Minister brought her own coffee, her own water bottle, would have to decline a cup of tea, thank you, and that a grown woman was allowed these small paranoias. But Relena wanted one year where Christmas was just _Christmas_ again, where she could feel peace on earth, and goodwill towards men. With her father gone, her mother retired to the Maldives, and her brother both still unfamiliar and also on Mars, well… There was only one person left really to spend Christmas with.

She placed a video call and relayed a short message to Quatre, who, she knew from experience, would be the one most likely to track him down. Three weeks later, a plain white paper envelope, just like the ones they used to rip up, was lying among her mail. It was simply the printout with the confirmation of a shuttle itinerary from L2 and along the bottom, bold block letters spelling 'INVITATION ACCEPTED.'

* * *

The shuttle had left him bleary eyed and slightly nauseated, as space travel always did when he wasn't the one piloting. The station in Sanq was freezing and he momentarily regretted not accepting Duo's offer of a winter jacket. Duo's had had fringe, so maybe it wasn't a totally regrettable decision. He'd rubbed his arms in the chill atrium looking around, and then suddenly she was there, bounding forward with glowing eyes, at once offering to carry his single bag, asking him how his trip had been, wasn't he freezing, was he hungry, and then apologizing for talking to much at once. During the next two days, tucked into her quiet routine in her townhouse, he slowly felt himself uncoil, like toes stretching out after hours in too-tight shoes.

Relena had dragged him out earlier that evening, insistent that he experience a "truly peaceful Christmas," but it seemed like her idea of Christmas was anything but peaceful. The market, despite the twinkling lights and quaint atmosphere, was a wave of complicated sensory information, from the tight stalls of the Christmas vendors to the army of food carts, and complicated by children dashing in and out of the crowds, shouting and laughing.

He was overwhelmed by bright lights, competing smells, and wall of sounds, and had almost drawn a gun at the first startling notes of a Oom-pah band who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to play "Deck the Halls" at high volume.

Relena looked back at his drawn-up shoulders and tight jaw and walked back to gently loop a mittened hand through the crook of his arm. Her smile was warm, gentle, and slightly melancholy.

"This is a little intense, isn't it? I used to come with my parents, and I loved it when I was smaller, but after everything that has happened… I feel like a little girl chasing fireflies. Just chasing after a specter of what Christmas used to mean, before. But it's not quite the same. Why don't we get some spätzel and sit down somewhere quiet for a bit?"

Heero wasn't sure what "spätzel" was, but he was more than happy to follow her lead, as she deposited him on a bench overlooking the market lights. She patted his bare head with her oversized mitten and it should have felt infantilizing, but instead it felt… nice. Silly. Sweet.

"Stay here for just a second. I promise I won't be more than ten minutes," she promised, dashing back towards the market stalls, her green hat and coat and huge white mittens disappearing among the lines milling around the food carts.

It was seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds when she returned, breathless, cradling two paper boats of what looked like pasta (?) in one hand, and two steaming cups of glühwein in the other. She held a paper boat out to him.

"You'll like it, it's good," she promised, so he took a tentative bite. It wasn't just good. It was delicious. Eating spätzel and sipping wine away from the crowds had the necessary effect on both of them. Relena stretched out her legs to swing her feet beneath the bench, warming her hands on the cup of wine and humming gently along with the choir who had thankfully replaced the Oom-pah band. Slowly, Heero felt his muscles begin to relax again, as the twilight began to fall, and the twinkling market lights shot lines of bright color against the snow. Relena looked out over the markets and stalls a little wistfully.

"I'm sorry the market was so intense, I know that really isn't your, well, scene. I appreciate you spending Christmas with me."

Heero shrugged and dug into his paper boat of spätzel, "I just came for the food."

Relena gasped dramatically, and turned to face him as he continued to look out over the Christmas market lighting up the gently falling snow, "Heero Yuy, did you just make a _joke_?"

Heero winced almost imperceptibly, which, to those who knew him, held the same tenor as an exaggerated shrug, "I think I've been spending too much time with Duo and Hilde. I've forgotten how to act around normal people."

Relena snorted into her glühwein and threw back her head to laugh until tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. "The very _idea_ that any of our interactions could be construed as normal…"

Heero managed to choke out a small grin, "You mean it's not normal teenage behavior to repeatedly threaten the girl you have a crush on? That wasn't covered in the manual."

Relena gave up and buried her face in the ridiculous mittens and laughed until she was gasping, curled against Heero's shoulder and shaking with giggles. When she finally wiped her eyes and managed to calm her breaths, she tipped her head up to admire the stars and smile up at the colonies and satellites sparkling in the heavens.

"I really am so happy that you are here to spend Christmas with me. Thank you for coming."

Heero didn't look at her, and they both gazed at the happy families wandering through the market stalls. She tucked her arms back around his, leaning against his shoulder and resting her cheek next to his so that warm breaths mingled together in the frosty air.

They sat silently for a long time before Heero cleared his throat gently and said, in a rough voice barely above a whisper, "I'll always come. All you ever need to do is ask."

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd because it was written in a hurry... so I apologise for any errors!


End file.
